In a written parliamentary question, Conservative MP Danny Kruger sought clarity from the Ministry of Defence on how changes to the Defence spending uplift might impact the ongoing Challenger 3 programme.
The response from Luke Pollard, Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the MoD, understandably offered little specific detail. Pollard’s response highlighted that:
“Funding for specific programmes is considered as part of the Department’s annual budget setting process. The Strategic Defence Review will report in the first half of next year and will set out recommendations on capabilities.”
The broader Strategic Defence Review, due next year, is expected to provide further clarity on the direction of the project. Until then, the future of this modernisation effort remains closely guarded.
In another question posed by James Cartlidge MP, he inquired about the number of submissions received for the Strategic Defence Review. Luke Pollard responded that the review had received input from over 1,700 individuals and organisations, which resulted in more than 8,000 answers across 23 propositions.
“Over 1,700 individuals and organisations responded providing over 8,000 answers across 23 Propositions. Respondents included Serving and retired members of the Armed Forces, the defence industry, the public, academics, Parliamentary colleagues, and our closest allies and partners, including NATO.”
Regarding the new defence review, the Government said previously:
“The Strategic Defence Review was launched by Prime Minister Keir Starmer to make Britain secure at home and strong abroad for decades to come. The review will put personnel at the heart of our future defence, strengthen our homeland security and ensure the UK continues to lead in NATO.
The review will utilise views from experts including military personnel, industry and academics. Defence Secretary John Healey will oversee the review, and the defence review team will be supported by a secretariat from the Ministry of Defence.”
Glad to see so many people contributing. The questionnaire was a beast to get through.
It was. What I found worrying about it were the questions that were implicitly asking what the role of military capability actually is- or what policy positions it should be expected to support. These are things the Government should already have decided as part of its offer to the electorate.
Yes, many of the questions I found too open and led me to question if the government even had a foreign policy.
What are the odds of a reduction to 125 vehicles…..priceless to even consider scrapping this project 148 is hardly enough to cover battlefield attrition rates. The dominoes are beginning to fall in both the Middle East and Ukraine and the UK Government contemplates defence cuts?
Wouldn’t save anything the contract is fixed for 148.
Why would you think of a reduction to 125 vehs? The signed contract is for 148.
No-one is thinking of scrapping CR3. The article if anything muses on whether the number might be raised due to a ‘spending uplift’.
Qty 148 is enough for the two armoured regiments in FS and just barely enough for the Trg Org (RAC & REME), Repair Pool and Attrition Reserve vehicles.
No significant increase above 148 CR3s (actually 147 as a pre-production model won’t be refitted to an operational standard, but instead used for destructive testing) is now practical. The British Army currently has 145 CR2s nominally capable of operations at 30 days notice. Eight CR2s have already been converted to the CR3 standard with a similar number in hand, the rest (c.50) are worn-out hulks beyond economic repair or conversion, and heading for the scrap yard. Realistically the 14 operational CR2s given to Ukraine in 2023 were the biggest potential addition to the planned 148 CR3s, one of the reasons… Read more »
I have long argued that 148 is not enough to allow sufficient for satisfactory numbers for the Trg Org, Repair Pool and Attrition Reserve. But I don’t hold out hope for even a modest increase. The only thing that would force an increase would be if FS was revised to keep the 3rd armoured regiment but that seems unlikely too. Where did you hear that the c50 in storage yet on the active list are unsuitable for conversion? There should also be a number of tanks on the inactive list which have not yet been scrapped, but their condition is… Read more »
>Where did you hear that the c50 in storage yet on the active list are unsuitable for conversion? I derived the approximate number by deducting 145 from 213 (Answers provided to Defence Questions in the House of Commons – see Hansard), then further deducted the CR3 conversions known to be completed or estimated on other boards to be in progress. I then assumed that remaining c.50 will undoubtedly be the ones in the worst condition (2-3 a year are judged to be beyond economic repair), and also stripped of potential spare parts except for a few being used for training… Read more »
However they have said the can build new hulls from scratch given modern rapid prototype and CAD/ CAM
Read the article above and refer to a recent comment on the Armed Forces blog. I doubt a rethink will happen regarding CH3 due to the small planned fleet. All I suggested may be an illogical decision to reduce the final numbers. Remember, the Treasury is making these decisions in a fog of fiscal panic.
Do we have enough to defend the U.K. the answer is yes but the question should be do we want to have the battle on our own soil.
148 is barely enough to meet our NATO commitments.
A strong defence is always far cheaper than a war.
I would imagine if any fight gets onto our soil we will already be well and truly *ked
Truer words never spoken than the last sentence of post! 👍. Amazingly few politicians comprehend the concept.
We don’t use tanks to defend the UK homeland. They were invented for expeditionary operations and still have that use.
I agree that 148 is an inadequate number. The army should be structured to have three armoured regiments for our warfighting division plus sufficient for Trg Org, RP, and Attrition Reserve.
Qty 227 should do it!
We should never plan to do battle on our own soil. British Warfare is collaborative and expeditionary by requirement and design. For us to be fighting on our own soil would mean a total failure of our strategic and operational doctrine on every level.
Michael, the UK historically fights its wars on foreign soil and needs to have a strong MBT fleet to fulfil its signed obligations.
No argument from me !!
I considered it the other way…actually will there be more.I think people are simply assuming this will be a defence cutting exercise without any evidence to back that up. The government has made it clear it will be increasing defence spending up to 2.5% over a longer term.
In no way has this review been set in the context of defence cuts or a reducing risk. It’s been set in the context of increased risk and increased spending.
It’s a reasonable assumption seeing as the only thing the Treasury talks about is the “black hole” and every Defense review in the past with the exception of after the Falklands has resulted in a cut in equipment, manpower and relative spending.
Yes but you have to remember the context of the black hole…that is in year spending. Not recurring spending. There is a big difference between that and 2010 when austerity was focused on cutting recurring spending to the bone. There is no discus of reducing the MODs budget, just increasing it.
In year MoD DEL is 700 million down, apparently.
As I have mentioned in my other responses, ‘The fog of fiscal panic’ is ruling this defence review and it will likely lead to years of further reorganisation and achieving very little in any tangible sense. I can imagine the MOD is banging its head against the wall at what is being proposed.
Given the large increase in skills in this area that the UK has basically just developed, in terms of the engineering and design areas, the new sensor packages and such, surely it makes a huge amount of sense to just jump right into gearing up for a CH4 programme; hybrid powertrain (BAE do these), that new american electrochemical-thermal 120mm gun, a native trophy system, some type of drone kill/ maybe a quad LLM launcher. Obviously we would have to restart hull production in earnest, but realistically no reason this could not be done by Bofors for example if we could… Read more »
Are you really suggesting stopping the CR3 line?
As the RAF and the RN do, the army should crack on with the future project whilst building its predecessor. Continue building CR3 whilst setting up a CR4 project team and have them doing some Concept work at least.
No not at all! But CR3 is well into the manufacture stage now and they’re only converting 148 existing hulls. I’m saying the engineering teams who did the work on CR3 should take all the things they had to compromise on due to being constrained by the existing hull and everything we’ve learned from Ukraine and get going on CR4. It doesn’t need to be a blank canvas, it can be an iteration, you can upgrade the hull whilst reusing the GVA and applying technologies from Ajax. But this requires the MoD to be competent…. spaceX have managed to build… Read more »
Question for you all to debate:
How can Bulgaria afford F35 jets and other countries like Poland get more military hardware for their buck whilst appearing to be far more forward thinking in their procurement?
The UK has quite a large amount of money invested in defence with a population that is going skyward and a tax intake that will only ever go one way, and yet all we read about is an army diminishing in size with capability gaps in most areas of defence?
Sorry Romania F35, Bulgaria F16 and don’t forget Greece who were pretty much bankrupt buying F35 🥴
Priorities due to culture. UK is a post civilized country.
Bulgaria does not have the global deployment expenses that we have. More of their budget can go on home and regional defence. They will probably buy more MOTS equipment from the international market than we do, which will be cheaper than homegrown bespoke kit.
Also: No Nuclear Deterrent. No Navy (litterally have 3 1970’s era Frigates displacing 2,000t armed with 8 Sea Sparrow and 4 Exocet, and people talk about T-31 being lightly armed). And the Bulgarian Army consists of literally 2 Brigades. Romania is slightly better off, operating a couple of Type 22s (London and Coventry), and fielding two small divisions, and yes F-35. Buuuut… 48 F-35 is essentially their entire airforce, they have 1 Submarine, 3 Frigates and a handful of corvettes, and while yes they have two divisions in theory, they’re very light on the back end and a lot of… Read more »
As far as I am aware, neither Bulgaria or Poland have 2 aircraft carriers or several nuclear subs… Nor do they have the very sophisticated (and expensive) information gathering systems the UK has.We often design our own kit which is then built in small numbers, they buy already developed and often cheaper second hand kit.
Incidentally, I know Wikipedia isn’t always the most accurate source, but it’s useful for a quick look.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_Air_Force
Air force consists of 13 Mig29, 7 Su25 and 16 F16 on order. No sign in the article of F35 – So…